


Golden Blood

by Cosmicserenity



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Attempted Murder, BAMF Clarice Starling, Dark, Dark Romance, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hannibal Lecter is a Duke, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Love Triangles? We've got THREE, M/M, Murder, Murder Husbands, Poisoning, Regency Romance, Rococo and Edwardian Era, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt, Suspense, Thriller, Unreliable Narrator, but also kinda hot, longfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:02:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28842819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmicserenity/pseuds/Cosmicserenity
Summary: The Blood Killer.In 1870's Paris, it's an alias everyone knows- including Jack Crawford, the chief investigator of the murders caused by this Serial Killer, and Will Graham- the man somehow tasked to kill the prime suspect: and at a party of all places.But when the assassination plot goes horribly wrong and Will ends up living under Duke Hannibal Lecter, one of the most mysterious men in France as well as the elusive killer that the world's been hunting, he soon finds that the ideals of murder and the virtues of Good and Evil have become too muddled for any man to tell apart.Now trapped in a game of love, hatred and morbid curiosity, Will will soon find himself with only three missions:Survive that mansion without going insane, kill the killer, and don't fall in love with Hannibal Lecter.--A culmination of the books, the movies, the show, and my own lil' ✨creative spins✨ on Hannibal/The Hannibal Tetralogy.
Relationships: Clarice Starling/Margot Verger, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	1. Author's Prelude

Hello, and welcome to Golden Blood!

I'd like to get a few things squared away before we begin on this journey of ours, mainly because this story has a lot of subtext/context to it that needs to be explained.

\---

1-Of course, warnings for violence, abuse, and canon-typical manipulation. Essentially, there's a helluva lot of death, murder, suicide, and just bonkers shit in this story that only get more intense as it goes on (Act II is a DOOZY), and they're all pretty graphic in both detail and description- not to mention the sheer toxicity that comes from this relationship in the first place. Fair warning, babes! 

**2-** This story is largely based off of two cultural eras: Rococo and Edwardian, and takes place in an alternate universe of early/mid 19th century France. Because this is a fusion of sorts- and because hey, this is _fanfiction_ \- not everything will be totally historically accurate.

**3-** Slight changes have been made to fit the storyline. Nothing too OOC, though.

**4-** As stated previously, a large portion of this story has been pre-written. That means there are gonna be pretty consistent/fast uploads! _However-_

**5-** There may be a point in which the series stops for a few days if the uploads catch up to the most recent point I've written. In the case that it does happen, there's your preliminary notice.

**6-** This fic is meant to be more story-based than romance-based, and by the time the story ends, the ship pairings could end up going either way/changing from the original plan. I'm both indecisive and spontaneous- sadly.

**7** \- Now I don't know if anyone will, but: If you ever want to create any fanwork of GB, be it fanart, fanfic, or just a cool ass meme or suggestion, go ahead! You have my absolute blessing, and all I would ask would be that you credit my ao3 user in your description and post a link to your work via either PM or in the comment section of any chapter of this fic. 

And, I think that's it! Thanks so much for reading, hopefully you enjoy, and _a bientot_!


	2. no. 1- Bezerka

“William.”

“Jack.” Will Graham mocked Jack’s scornful tone, stripping bulbus seeds from the cattails he had plucked and throwing them into the water as he sat by the riverside. He couldn’t find in himself the strength to look at him.

With silvering hair and drooping eyes resembling that of an old bloodhound, Jack Crawford approached the riverbank where Will stooped, grunting as he struggled to maintain his balance on the grassy terrain and standing eerily close to face the slouched back of the man who had again failed to prepare for the impending duty that sat burning on the backs of his muddied heels.

“James told me of your whereabouts.”

“He would not be my guard if he hadn't. After all, every guard in this dreadful mansion is willing to vomit information at your feet if it means you’ll pass them a second glance.” 

Will waved him away in a fruitless sort of action, throwing another catkin into the water and twisting the emptied stem in between his fingers. He liked to watch them sink, to watch the fish nibble at their pollen before swimming off and determining that they didn’t like the taste. When Will would throw another in the water and watch those same fish return looking for a different meal in the same poison, it made him laugh; but then he'd be reminded that he was doing the exact same thing in his own life, and his mood would die all over again. A cycle.

“The reasoning of their willingness to aid me is neither of our concerns. What is our concern- particularly _yours-_ is whether you will be able to execute your mission tonight.” Jack said, peering into the river and watching their reflections shift in the water. “Are you ready to do this?”

“Seeing as how Father has sent you here to fetch me, I assume you are already aware of the correct answer.” 

“I didn’t come here to hear another reiteration of the ‘correct’ answer, William.” Jack responded. “I came to hear your own answer, spoken through your own lips.” 

“And why do you want to hear my answer, Jack?”

“I simply wish to know that I'm not sending you into the den of a monster with a muddled head, is all.”

“So, in other words, you want me to say something to make you feel guiltless once I kill a man while under your careful watch.”

Jack kicked a rock in the water. “Hannibal Lecter is evil personified, William; he drains the blood out of his victims' bodies for the _thrill_ of it. You should know that you have to do this.”

“Is this supposed to serve as your way of motivating me?”

“It is supposed to serve as a reminder that if there was any other way to go about this, your father and I would have taken a less foolhardy option. One that wouldn’t be endangering your livelihood as such.”

That was impossible to believe, and Will told him so by the way he scooted away from him and closer to the other cluster of cattails that sat unwasted to his right. 

“No, you wouldn't have. You and I both know that my wellbeing is the least thing you're concerned about.” It was a heavy statement that did nothing to lift the spirits of the conversation, monotonous and exhausted.

“You won’t be alone, if that’s what worries you.” Jack didn’t refute Will’s earlier claim, but Will hadn't expected him to. Jack Crawford was no liar; he would never say things simply for the sake of saying them. And if he did, he would have no qualms with letting the world know he didn’t mean what he said.

“That doesn’t ease my discomfort.” Will responded, letting his fingers linger on a catkin before deciding against plucking it from its stem. 

“What would ease your discomfort, then?”

“Nothing.”

Will replied to Jack's loaded question with an edge in his voice, but still didn't look up. His eyes were too preoccupied, now counting the dragonflies that dipped on and off the river's surface with the entranced bobbing of his pupils. There were three, today. A low number for the beginnings of September.

Noting Will’s stubborn response but childish avoidances of the depth that came with a face to face conversation, Jack sighed, and extended his hand for the younger man to take as he jerked his head towards the Graham manor. “You're to be killing a killer, Will. You're doing God's work.”

“I'm to be killing a man who's _presumed_ to be a killer. That's not God's work- that's insanity. And you know it is.” After a bit of contemplation, Will took Jack’s hand and hoisted himself up, patting down dirt dusted pants and tearing his eyes away from the river with a reluctance that felt unnatural. 

“Not if I'm right, and he truly is the one who killed them. Who killed her.” 

Jack nudged him, the gesture only there to ease the mood yet failing miserably, and walked back towards the manor’s gated entrance with Will trailing lazily beside him. 

Will didn't care whether Jack was right or not, and almost told him so, but kept his mouth shut. In situations like these, no matter what he wanted, what he cared for, or what he detested; it was all unimportant. Then again, it had always been unimportant. 

That was why Will was going to be a murderer by the end of the night; and a murderer of a Duke, no less.

In a thoughtful hindsight, Will didn’t know why or how Jack had come to the conclusion that Hannibal Lecter was a murderer; because in the one time that he asked, Jack only murmured a half-hearted statement of ‘I have my resources’ that was expected to sate Will’s needless desire for knowledge. It didn’t. But Jack continued on his hunt with his eyes on Hannibal and his gun fully loaded all the same, trekking into danger without ever accounting for the consequences that surely were to come.

Dubbed the mysterious 'Blood Killer' by sensationalized newspaper headlines and 'The Black Doctor' by gossiping nobles who had nothing better to do in their spare time, Crawford often publicly theorized the enigmatic murderer to be a man who came from a broken home and had subsequently acquired a broken psyche, as well. But when he was around Will, and could freely accuse Duke Hannibal Lecter as the killer without receiving strange looks from nobles and worried whispers from peasants, Jack described him as the type of man who killed his victims slowly. Creatively. Well.

Like a candlelight latching onto an old curtain, the alleged number of murders by Lecter accumulated to staggering amounts. First were a few peasant workers by the edge of the capital, then, a foreign count who had come to the country for diplomatic purposes, and most recently, Jack’s own wife- who Jack had the displeasure of seeing slumped over in their dining room with her intestines tied around her throat and a burning candle half-melted in the cavity in her torso.

After that, the absence of actual evidence to indict Hannibal was rendered insignificant in Jack’s vengeful vision, and Will had watched him spend every day trying to destroy the life of the demon who had supposedly taken his only love. When the systems of lawful justice failed to aid him in those attempts, Jack turned to Will’s father for a more sinister alternative, and the two had finally forged a plan to kill Hannibal after 9 months of forming and reforming their strategy over tea times and secret letters.

And the scapegoat of that plan was none other than Will himself. The twenty-two year old only son of the decrepit Graham family, the foolish boy who had always remained desperate to gain his father’s attention, and the eternally inept man who was left to do nothing but serve under the demands of the only family he had; the family who knew Will would always obey.

“Sir Graham! Sir Crawford!” The footguards tensed as they stood on either side of the opened wrought iron gate, their rifles tucked at their hips serving as frivolous displays of power, and displayed a curt bow as Will and Jack approached the front gates of the manor. 

“I thank you for your assistance again, you two.” Jack nodded, smacking Will’s back like he would a stag he had captured. “He would have been seated there by that riverbank for hours if you hadn’t told me of his location.”

Will rotated his shoulders to ease the stinging pain that came forth from Jack’s hand in between his shoulder blades, cutting a glare towards the footguards and controlling the immature urge to roll his eyes into the back of his head. They were guards, he reminded himself. Guards who cared, guards who knew that the annulment of their work contracts would be finalized all too soon, and guards who ardently wanted future job security.

“Yes, your constant willingness to relay information to anyone who asks is _always_ delightful. After all, I believe that there is nothing on earth that could negate the necessity of two loyal lackeys."

"There must be no reason to react in such a way, Sir Graham." One of the men mustered up a smile, the sort that only existed to feign a necessary sympathy, and glued it in between his lips. When the smile went unmatched, it faded.

“We are the guards of the Manor, Sir." The other guard cleared his throat and let himself succumb to the agitated air that sat on all of their shoulders. "We have to make sure you’re taken care of.”

 _How fraternal._

“Prepare the carriage for us, you two. We must hurry if we want to make Sir William’s appearance in the soiree as flawless as possible.”

The guards nodded with a synchronized wink and rushed to the stables with an ignorance that Will envied. 

“What did you tell them, Jack?” Will asked, ensuring that the guards were well out of earshot before mumbling out his question in a slew of hushed utterances. As he spoke, he and Jack stepped up from cobblestone and onto gravel, purposely slowing their pace as they rounded the intricately designed fountain that stood in the middle of the walkway. “The ‘excuse’ for my attendance, I mean.”

“I only told them that you are attending the soiree with the intention to accompany Lady Margaret.” Jack replied, stopping at the manor's entrance. A pair of maids emerged on either side of the door, waiting for an order that Will would never give, and stood like mannequins frozen in a timeless spiral of indentured servitude.

"'Accompany', or 'Court'?" 

"I left that aspect up to interpretation."

Will wondered if the news had reached Molly herself. Likely not; for if it had, she would have been at the manor already. 

“Either way," Jack coughed into a balled fist, his eyes drifting from the maids in the doorway before returning to Will. "Bathe, and make haste with your changing. You have work to do.”

The maids took Jack’s words as their own stir to action, with one rushing into the home to prepare Will’s bath and the other going to put together his formal garments, and Jack moved back towards the gate to oversee the stablehand’s work on their transport without a second thought. 

“I don’t want to do this, Jack. You know I don't.” The words came from impulsive thinking and subconscious anxiety, loud and echoed in the space that now existed between the two of them, but Will didn’t stop talking. “And you know this won't bring her back, either. ”

A flinch reverberated off of Jack's back, obvious and uninhibited. “I know it won't. But I'm going to see this through. And regardless of your wants, you will be the one to finish this.”

It was a heavy retort, sticking onto Will’s lean figure like a humid August sweat all as he walked into the house, into the bathing quarters, sank into the bathing basin and let the water wrap around his body, and the finality of it was one that now added to the metaphysical anvil that pressed on the young man’s mind. Thankfully he had managed to coerce his servants long ago into not aiding him in the process of bathing and dressing himself, for there was nothing he desired to do more than rest a segment of his face under the water and brood alone as he kept his eyes on his now limited future.

He took his time in fiddling with the ochre flower petals that had been dumped into the bath, gradually lifting one into the air between two long fingers to watch its veins pulsate under the sun’s blazing rays, and felt his lower jaw shift against the taut tendons in his throat as he let his arm fall limp back into the water with a wet crash. 

Will had enough of a moral compass to know that theoretically, what he was doing was a good thing. He was just in his actions, a light shining through the darkest of tempests like a modern day Aquila, and the murder of the Duke would forever be regarded in the pits of his soul as an action brought forth from necessity. There was no room in the world for a selfish killer, and Will found no remorse for the man who could murder others without a second thought.

Instead, the vines of apprehension that had wrapped themselves around his neck came from his own aversion to the unknown.

He hadn’t told anyone, but Will had imagined the Duke’s murder every night for the past two weeks. How his eyes would bulge as he clenched his stomach, how blood would bubble from his lips and spill onto his overcoat as his body burned from the inside out, how he would die before his sins were repented for. Laying in bed in the dead of the night, Will had been letting his imagination run wild in a grotesque routine, blinking slowly to the thoughts of what the venom would do and how shocked the guests would be as they watched the man they revered as a pinnacle of power become reduced to nothing but a mess on the floor below them; and to that image, he would fall asleep with a smile on his face.

It would only be later in the morning that he would realize what he had thought and how he had reacted, and then he would feel himself begin to shiver in his nightclothes. 

Will wasn’t afraid to kill Hannibal. As paranoid as he was about it whenever the thought lingered on his head for too long, he wasn’t afraid of his own death, either. But he was petrified of the person he would become once he would take his first life, because he didn't know who that person would be.

The bath had gone cold by the time Will got out of it, drying himself with a towel, and he slipped his clothes on slowly just to give himself more time to think of the scenario he had somehow found himself in and why he had found himself in it.

They were incessant thoughts that would serve no purpose five minutes from the time they were constructed, but served their purpose in aiding him in his anxious dissociation well as he stepped now fully clothed from the bathing quarters and back towards the exit, heeled shoes making tip-taps across the floor until they reached the rough texture of broken stone and stopped beside the gate. The fiery hues of the sun had fizzled out into just darkening violets, and a small part of him looked forward to being able to see that wounded sky again from his bedchambers once the mission was complete and he could finally sink into a state of an paradoxically contented restlessness.

“Are you ready, Will?” Jack asked the question one last time, expecting an response that Will knew would be a lie if it were said.

He said it anyway.

“I'm ready.”

With that, they clambered into the carriage without incident or conversation, and Jack motioned for the coachman to begin their ride off to the Duke’s chateau. As Will felt himself ride away, taking note of how the manor slowly grew smaller as the carriage rode around winding pine trees and ducked up and down messily paved hillside roads, he kept his eyes on the one window that seemed to shine brighter than the others and tried his hardest to discern his father’s sunken face amidst the shadows.


	3. no. 2- Allegretto

“You will do it after the music begins, but before the celebration becomes too populated.”

Jack was quick to murmur directions as he stepped from the carriage, nodding to fellow guests with polite smiles and forced gestures of camaraderie as they neared the Chateau's front gates. Will trailed beside him, shaking under his outwardly perceived wall of indifference, and sauntered on while staring at his shoes in an attempt to keep himself centered. It still wasn’t working, though, none of his 'coping methods' were- no matter how hard he tried or how many times he tore and tore again the scrap pieces of paper that sat in his right overcoat pocket. He could never be centered. Always skewed off in directions that he could not control.

He had quite obviously been anxious prior to his arrival, the thought of Fate’s vicious touch still lingering all over his body and leaving acidic tingles to sear all of the hairs on his neck; but now, that fear had transformed into one that was more focused on the people that bumped and bashed against his trembling shoulders and sweating hands rather than the nature of a future assassination.

There were too many people. Too many eyes. Like soaring into the spectacular sun after being confined in a calamitous prison cell for years, or looking plainly into the eyes of a God all-powerful after knowingly committing every sin known to man and beast alike, their stares burned; and every gaze, whether it was directed at him or not, made his teeth clatter in his jaw and scrape at the edges of his tongue with every second that passed. 

And if he were to be completely honest, which he knew then and forever that he would never be, he only wanted to return to his quarters and remain there until he learned how to breathe again; or at least go to an area less populated as to stop the high-pitched ringing in his ears. But he was here with Jack, and Jack cared little about discomfort when his wife's presumed killer was a few hundred steps away.

“I know, Jack.”

“When I send him to you, have two glasses prepared. One with the cantarella, one for you. Waste no time in giving him the drink.” Jack continued, slipping the small bottle of poison into Will’s hand and waiting for him to stuff it down into his pocket. When he did, Jack quickened his paces.

“I _know_.”

“Under no circumstances should you allow yourself to get overwhelmed. Avoid the gazes of the partygoers and keep your mind on the task ahead.”

“I-”

Too late. Will looked from the ground and up to Jack, fixing his mouth to retort with another, fiercer reminder that the plan was simple enough for him to understand without receiving the same slow-witted and gratuitous cycle of steps, but froze mid sentence as he absorbed the space that stood behind his friend and caught another stare from another stranger. She was younger, her gloved hands at her torso and her pinned hair whipping about due to both an occasionally wild wind and a well-intentioned wonder, and persistently pinched at her fingertips in an anxious action she surely didn’t notice herself. She was looking for someone, trying to find someone she knew wasn’t there and had likely met Will’s eyes purely by accident; but the truth of the situation didn’t prevent his gaze from falling back on the ground, nor did it keep his throat from souring with the taste of nausea thick on his tastebuds. Infernal stares could never be seen for long.

"I know, Jack."

“You have to get this right, Will.” Jack said, acting as if he were speaking from experience. “You have to do this for the victims. For Bella. For me.”

For him. Of course it was for him, it had always been for _him_. It was why they were there, pinning a death sentence to a man who possibly didn’t even deserve it; why Will’s sanity was dangling like a carrot from a line of spider’s thread. He adored Jack in a way he could adore no other in his life, had loved Bella even more before her death, and yet he could find only an intense displeasure in the sight of how easy it was for Jack to have taken advantage of that admiration and use it simply for an ill-placed need for vengeance. More than that, he detested how he himself was so desperate for validation that he’d still do anything just for Jack to say he was proud of him, even this, because he knew that his father never would and craved for a paternal replacement in a place where there couldn’t and shouldn’t have been one.

“William?”

Will blinked, once, then twice, then a host of times, finding the words to speak buried under mixed emotions. “I know. I know.”

And with that, they entered into the Chateau.

It was a large scale party, one bigger than any other celebration he had attended; and had been occurring year after year for the past thirty-nine as a form of exuberance, livelihood and poseurism on the Lecters' behalf. According to the murmurs Will had heard from the guests who had passed him, Hannibal’s uncle had been the first one to host these parties in his own house, many years past, and had continued to do so up until a two decades ago; when a tray of turkish delights were the final instrument in clogging up his arteries and making the man fall dead on the top of his dinner table. Stroke, some said. Heart attack, said others.

If Jack were still there beside him, he’d probably say poison; a last ditch effort for a then twenty-one year old Hannibal to get rid of the nuisance that had been his guardian after the rest of his family had already been ‘taken care of’. Quite a hypocritical statement given the bug venom being poured by shaking hands into Hannibal’s champagne glass as Will stood in the far corner of the great hall with his back to the crowd, he thought, now quickly hidden by decorative plants that seemed to be far from their native lands with his eyes focused on the task in front of him.

Jack had left his side the moment the two entered into the party, scouting for potential ‘problems’ and making menial conversation in the meantime so to keep any wandering eyes from finding themselves fixed to Will’s position just in case they saw something they shouldn’t have. Finding Hannibal himself was Will’s job, apparently, and so he took to finding him the moment that the poison was in the glass and he had mentally prepared himself for the forced conversation that was to follow. In minutes, footsteps, and a few half-genuine “I’m sorry”s muttered all as he maneuvered past the other partygoers, he finally saw him.

There he stood, pious, and magnificent, and consecrated beyond all expectation. There he stood, with his back straightened, his shoulders squared and his eyes filled with a distant emotion that Will was desperate to see more of as the night continued. There stood Hannibal, his target, mere feet away but close enough to gravitate all gazes towards him as he spoke with his guests and remained oblivious to the fact that the world revolved around him. And there stood Will, with his eyes transfixed on the man in front of him and his heart bruising itself with the booms that would thump against his ribcage.

When they finally saw each other, _saw_ each other, with bronze eyes falling on black ones and an empty smile meeting a fake one, did Hannibal see Will’s anxiety wrapped over him like a woolen coat; see how it made his back sweat and his eyes redden? Or did he see more, noticing the hostility and observing the malicious intent that lied in the corner of Will’s irises? It was unrealistic to even assume such ideas, brazen and unnecessary when weighed against the burden of the night in itself, but Will was struck with an unfeigned wonder regardless as everything became muted against the sounds of thunderous footsteps stopping inches away from the Duke and the steady rumble of courteous speech escaping thin peony lips.

“Sir Graham, how lovely to have you. You look wonderful.”

Will was surprised that Hannibal knew his name; that he could say it with such ease, even. He said _'Sir Graham'_ like he was reciting the title of an exquisite work of art, distant yet revering, and rolled every ‘r’ against the roof of his mouth with a fervor that felt almost purposely embellished. It wasn’t appreciated, nor flattering, and made snakes slither in Will's stomach.

“Please, the pleasure is mine alone.” Will grinned a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, the disingenuousness of the sentiment cleverly disguised behind elaborate inflections. 

“I see you have two glasses.”

An astute observation.

“Ah, yes- I had made my rounds this way so as to propose a drink with you. As a sign of goodwill, and a show of my gratitude for inviting me to this celebration.” Will set the glasses on the table that sat to the left of them, in front of yet another potted plant, and purposely pushed one closer to Hannibal’s side.

“An action most appreciated, however unexpected.” 

“Of course. As the sole heir to the Graham title, it would be my honor to forge a bridge of connection with you, Your Grace.” As if on cue, he bowed, closing his eyes with the succinct movement and tucking his hands at his sides. Even murderers deserved the proper respect.

“Well, I’m honored that you would go to such lengths to achieve this connection, Sir Graham. Especially given that as far as I seem to know, you’ve never attended one of my family's ceremonies." Hannibal was the only living person left in his family. The ceremonies weren't his family's, anymore.

“It is, and you’re right- I haven’t.” Will replied, arising from his bow and allowing the first traces of truth to slip into his sentence. He had to think fast when it came to his reply, something that hardly came easy to a man who dissociated into fishing fantasies more often than he ever cared to admit.

“But, I’m here now, and will be here for as long as you continue to hold these celebrations. After all,” He had gotten more excited, now settling in the ease of his lie. “In this world, it is much better to have more friends by your side then none, wouldn’t you agree?"

“When provided that explanation, I find it hard to challenge your proposal.”

Hannibal went to grab the drink from the table, but soon stopped to squint at a distant guest. When Will followed his eyes, turning his head around to face the crowd, all he could gather was the flash of navy and the bouncing of bobbed blonde hair striding away from their once still places in the overhead orchestra pit before the doors closed. Had they seen something? Did they know something? If they did, they chose not to reveal what they knew, and that was a fact that left him dangerously content on the ballroom floor.

By the time Will returned his focus to him, Hannibal had already lifted his champagne flute in the air and was preparing to toast, a lip print smeared on the rim of his glass. It was small, but enough to allow a breath of relief to escape through Will’s lips as he disguised his emotions under a thinly veiled layer of strained enthusiasm.

And with the clinks of their glasses, the swallows of their drinks and the steps into the next phase of their menial discussion, he relaxed his posture and waited for the inevitable to arrive.

Will would never describe himself as being impatient. He had a philosophy, one that stood in favor of letting time pass as it wanted and holding no breaths for the future to turn in his favor- but as the minutes ticked by and Hannibal’s glass began to empty, he felt an ever-swelling need for something to _change_ as the crowd surrounding them began to thicken and antsy noblemen wrapped around the dancefloor with their partners in tow. Things were getting more crowded, more _suffocating_ , and as his eyes darted from one side to another as his conversation with Hannibal dawdled on, he grew obsessively paranoid; clawing at his thighs through the fabric of his pockets, sweating profusely under the reflected lights of crystal chandeliers, counting and recounting the beats of the music that danced and frolicked around the gathering. Though he could feel no mental discomfort by any means, having made the corner of the ballroom his home, his stomach was in knots he could not release, and it was the sole incentive he needed to know something was wrong.

“Frankly, I am quite surprised to know that you would choose to speak with someone such as myself.” Will said it to deter Hannibal from the conversation, feeling his chest grow hot as he focused on the rhythmic movements of dancing guests, and cleared his throat.

“I see no reason why I shouldn’t. You are a nobleman, aren’t you?” 

‘I have…” He found it difficult to say the words. “...been rumored to be mad, your Highness. And my family…is slowly becoming destitute.”

“I would hardly call you mad, Sir Graham- that, I feel is only a popular theory made by people with nothing to do and nowhere to go. But I have heard of your family’s fallen status, and I cannot help but ask why the wealthy Graham estate has fallen so. If there’s anything I can do to help, even.” Hannibal lifted his glass in the air and took a final sip.

“Well, I-” 

Almost immediately, Will felt his body crumble to dust beneath him, the remnants of his reply dissolving in the sensation of his eyelids spasming over his pupils. Easily, unstoppable, like the continuous rushing of a waterfall or the speed of a bullet unrestrained, his senses collided, his sight melding with his hearing in a way that was impossible to describe and his balance fading in favor of a wave of agony that froze his blood and dragged electric knives down every muscle that twitched in his torso. It seized his mouth, intercepting the graceless plea for help he tried to shout, and suddenly, he knew that the intuitive feeling of discomfort was one he should have listened to long ago.

“Are you alright? Do you feel feverish?” They were echoed words despite the fullness of the room, his accent peaking through every vowel that slid past his teeth and bouncing off of the caverns of Will’s eardrums. “Or do you feel worse- as if your drink has been poisoned?”

The champagne. Will’s emptied glass slipped out of his hands and onto some wet surface with a squish, but he couldn’t yet create the will to look down at what it was. He imagined it was his own dead body lying there, but reminded himself it was only because the insect poison had begun in its causing him to see a bit too much and much too little simultaneously.

“How did-” Will broke his sentence in favor of gulping a metallic liquid back down his throat, sticky drops of sweat gliding down his face and staining his collar as he struggled to stay awake. “How did you-”

“You are clumsily obvious, Sir Graham.”

His vision doubled as he stumbled onto one of the sculpted columns, his heartbeat thumping in irregular intervals as his knees knocked against each other and his chest heaved with malignant affliction. When had he switched the drinks? Was he going to die? 

“If you hold concern of whether or not you’ll survive through the night, take solace in the fact that the dose has been diluted. You can thank the potted plant to your left, for that.”

“What?” Will smacked his palm on the side of the column, feeling razor blades begin to burst about in his chest, and turned to squint at the potted fir sapling that had been meticulously placed by his side long before the celebration began, his empty champagne flute having fallen into damp soil. “ _Oh_.”

Hannibal saw the opportunity to step closer in the midst of Will’s distraction and took it, his two padded steps crossing the distance of the Red Sea as he leaned inches away from Will’s head. “You aren’t in any position to be by yourself, even still. Your chest is burning, your blood is churning, and to be frank, you need someone to care for you. It seems you’ve made that much a habit.”

“I-”

The feeble argument was overwhelmed by the blaring sound of music, court musicians blindly easing continuances of violent notes from their instruments. The premiering crescendo alone was enough to cause drops of blood to overflow from the creases of his lips, and Will prayed to a God he didn’t believe in to keep him coherent until the conversation was over.

“Ah, the musicians have at last begun to play the first waltz. A perfect opportunity, wouldn't you agree?” Hannibal smiled, one that made Will’s brain flinch, and filled the distance completely until one of his hands fell upon his shoulder and the other was held out in a sign of invitation. 

“Shall we?”

In his own response, Will said nothing, but slumped his weight onto the Duke’s chest in a form of reluctant agreement. It was too late to care what people saw or thought, and despite the clusters of gasps he heard from guests, he allowed him to whisk his feet to the center of the ballroom and waltz with him until he grew bored and chose to throw his limp body away. In the moment, it was all he could think to do.

Hushed utterances bubbled about the ballroom like the cackles of hyenas as the music soared into its second crescendo, a waltz of some kind that would have been identifiable if Will's body wasn't dipped in the thick musk of Death, and continued all as his feet dragged along the center of the floor. He was lethargic, his body shaking despite the warmth of the room and his yellowed eyes fixed on an elaborately carved point in the ceiling, but none of it couldn't keep him from being cradled in between muscular arms and strewn about the marbled tile that lined the floor, nor could it stop Hannibal from looking down at him with a stare that could burn steel as he led the both of them into a dance of dubious passion.

“You are smarter than you look, Sir Graham.”

He whispered the words in his ear like song notes as the two glided across the ballroom, his breath smelling of untampered champagne as they swayed idly to the melodic sounds of double basses and violas. Somehow, like a gift from an angel, Will found a before lost will to reply as he opened a gap in between his lips.

“And you... are a _demon_.”

Hannibal did little more than smirk at that, taking a painfully slow time in inching his hand down the back of his partner’s embroidered waistcoat with one hand and squeezing Will's wet palm with the other.

“A wonderful combination we would be, don’t you think?"

It was the last thing Will could remember before he slumped into sleep, falling limp in Hannibal’s embrace with the torpor of a tattered ragdoll and finding an ironic comfort in his warmth until he allowed himself to be dragged away by concerned hands he had felt before and yet never wanted to feel again.

All while he stay there, half-dead and half-tortured by that disguised devil, hallucinations of past selves and dead relatives all had been touching him, _fondling_ him, shoving him into the arms of his enemy and leaving his seizing body to shiver in his clutches with smiles that reached the circles under their eyes and limbs that broke and contorted to better fit in the crowd they had formed around the two men. In the moment, long and excruciating, it was hell- but later, Will would find it to be a twisted sort of blessing from Fate.

Because just before he finally faded into unconsciousness, he was given the opportunity to dance with his Angel of Death. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Istg I crawl outta the trenches to post these updates sometimes but we back! Hopefully you enjoy :D  
> also, lol, can you tell I was into the Borgias when I wrote this chapter? (Really good show)


	4. no. 3- Nocturne

_"I'm not leaving yet, John. He's been squirming about in that bed for the past 2 hours. He's to wake up soon, I know he is."_

_A long, mumbled response, and the shifting of a posture just outside the doorway. The sun hadn't yet rose, but yet the two men were awake and energetic just outside of the door._

_"Enough. You’ve said your point. Just- Just let me know when he wakes. I'll tell him about it myself."_

◇

It wasn't until 29 hours had passed and Will had been escorted back to the Graham manor that his eyelids twitched back open, dressed again in his ivory colored nightclothes and tucked into his bed like a child before a holiday. His mind was clouded, thoughts drifting from left to right in the caverns of his skull and falling nowhere, and yet still didn’t prevent him from realizing the truth of his situation. He had failed to execute Hannibal, and now both he and Jack's lives dangled from a red string that could be cut at any uncertain time or date. 

He had little else to feel or to think of as he laid in that room aside from his own demise, but wondered if his life at that moment were to be considered one of virtue and justness; a righteous but warped tale where good triumphed over evil and heroes relished themselves with the last laugh in the story of their own demise. If that was so, and Will was truly nothing more than a villain to be slaughtered, he would be left to only question what type of uncouth God would allow a murderer to live like a king and a victim to become a casualty.

Because that was all Will viewed himself as. A victim and a future casualty. 

Jack was nowhere in sight, which was a fact that made him feel both relieved of the present and dreadful of the future, but he smiled still at the sight of his handmaid busying herself with flower arrangements by his windowsill as if nothing had changed since his 'outing'. Ironic, considering that she had been the only servant in the manor to know what the outing truly had entailed.

“Hello, Ms. Beverly.”

"How are you feeling, Will?"

He didn’t have time to answer the question before Beverly took off to inform one of the guards outside of the room of Will's newfound consciousness. In the meantime, he squarely sat up from the mattress and let the comforters slump around his waist, rubbing his face with his palm and scowling at the sensation of dried blood that grazed his fingertips. There was an iron bucket to his right, emptied then but still tinted with brown stains along the bottom and sides of it, and he surmised that he had been vomiting his own stomach lining in his sleep. Delightful.

“Do you think you can retain this?” Beverly shuffled back into his bedroom and lifted a cup of tea in the air, a wordless offer Will accepted with the nodding of his head as he watched her shut the door closed. 

“I’d rather appreciate it if you told me what happened last night, as well.” He squinted at the two pills on the saucer, then returned wary eyes to her.

“They’re iron pills, courtesy of Doctor Gideon. He prescribed them to you the night you came in- the night before last.” She clarified the date for him, and Will stifled a groan at the time that had passed. “And onto your other point, what makes you think I’d know about what happened that night?”

“You’re nosey.”

“I’m not nosey, Sir.” Beverly set the saucer in his hands and waited to see if he’d be able to hold it, leaning her side against one of the foot posts that framed his bed. “Information’s simply drawn to me.”

“Drawn to you? That’s a laugh.” 

The way the two conversed could have been considered too crass for a handmaid to speak with a noble, just as it could have been considered impolite for a noble to engage in sardonic banter with a handmaid, but Will couldn’t bring himself to care. He never could in the 6 years they had known each other. His handmaid was a friend, an only friend, and the one reason why he hadn’t ran from that nightmarish manor already.

“They're... saying you made a mixup. That it’s your fault the plan went wrong, and that Jack was the one who ‘resolved the incident’.” Slightly contorting her face and lowering her voice as if revealing a secret, Beverly’s expression alone was an indication that telling Will what she heard was the last thing she had intended to do that day. It didn't matter.

“Of course they are.” Despite the flatness of the statement, he felt twinges of an unnecessary guilt inflate in his lungs. 

Beverly shifted in her spot, standing against the foot post. “There was also...a letter.”

“From Lady Margaret?” He swallowed the iron pills as he waited on her answer.

“From the Duke. Sent personally.”

The tea cup clanked against its saucer, held by wobbling fingers. 

“And… what did the letter say, Beverly?” 

“I couldn’t read it. The only one who knows what it says, aside from your father, is Jack.” She was exasperated, ironically pacing the floor in the stead of her overseer and letting the creaks serve as temporary distractions for Will’s reeling emotions. 

“What really happened that night, Will?”

It was a question he was expecting, but not one he was willing to fully answer. He hadn’t wanted to relive the experience. It was too fresh; the feeling of Hannibal’s hand pressed against the small of his back, the tapping of dress shoes whose reverberation outmatched even the loudest of cellos, the sensation of soft lips curling against the side of his neck as accented murmurs caressed his eardrums, the hallucination of his dead mother beside him with a smile on her face that clashed with the harrowing sight of her sunken eyes and swollen hands.

He could never be able to enclose that night with words, to describe it in a way that would have allowed Beverly to relish in the taste of that tainted drink and cause her to feel a heat race all throughout her bones when she heard how strong he was and how passionately he held him. No sentence, no language of any design could convey that emotion, the one that had replaced Will’s veins with its roots and bore it’s poisonous fruit in his heart; and so he decided it was best to not even attempt it at all. Instead, all he could do was give her the vaguest of truths, the ones that stated Hannibal had swapped their drinks and waltzed with him before he fell victim to his own inadequate execution, and even then he was interrupted by the brassy throat clearing of the one man he hadn't wanted to see before he could even finish his vocal recollection.

“Miss Katz.” Jack Crawford’s voice rang out clearly, sounding louder in the room than it usually did as he kept his stare on Will’s sweating face. “I presume you know what it is I need you to do?”

Will could see Beverly’s vertebrae dance in her spine at the sound of Jack’s command, registering that her presence was no longer required and bounding step after step towards the carved bedroom door. “Of course, Sir Crawford.” 

In times like those and moods like that, stagnant and stale, no one preferred to oppose Jack’s demands. In a selfish, sordid sort of fashion, Will wished they did.

The door slammed closed, and with it, the thought of a genial conversation, and Jack took his seat at Will’s desk and leaned hunched over with his hands clasped between opened knees. He sat directly in front of him, but his position didn’t matter. Will could have felt those eyes from any direction and from any location without needing to push himself an inch.

“You failed, Will.” 

“I almost died, Jack.”

His play at sympathy went purposely ignored in spite of its merit, and Jack’s jaw clenched with the impatience of a man who was eager to start an argument. It wouldn’t happen. 

“I told you not to get overwhelmed. I told you to keep your wits about you. For the love of the Virgin, WIll, I told you how crucial it was that you get this right.” He seethed his statements despite his best attempts to sound relaxed.

“You can make your point without needless Catholic conjecture, Sir Crawford.”

Jack moved to stand, and Will flinched on his mattress until his back pressed lightly against his satin pillows. With his shoulders squeezed and his chest hunched inward, he set his now empty cup down on the surface of one of his nightstands and lowered his eyes in a belated show of respect.

“I thought you could handle it. I knew you could handle it." Jack’s voice was softer now, low and rumbling and passionately hated, but he continued on. "What happened to the plan?"

"He switched the drinks." It was the short answer, the proper one. Will knew he had heard an inkling of his past conversation with Beverly, and found no necessity in repeating memories he wished would be repressed.

"He switched the drinks." Jack repeated, reclining in Wills seat and letting the temporary quiet serve as a reflection of his opinions on the matter. If the mood of the room served as an indication, those opinions were far from good. “And why did he switch the drinks, Will?”

“Because he knew I poisoned his glass.”

“And instead of having you detained immediately, or killing you in the ways we theorize he has before, he instead made you drink his champagne?” Jack pushed further, never moving but still too close to Will’s face. 

“Yes.” 

“And why would he do that?”

With that, Will was caught in a lie he hadn’t told. He didn’t have an answer, nor the beginnings of an answer, that would satisfy the situation at hand or solidify the matter he argued for, and he burned at the acknowledgment of it. Hannibal hadn’t had a reason to dilute the drink, to save him from his own demise and yet sign his name on Death’s contract simultaneously, but he did. He did, and he knew he could; because he knew he could get away with it. 

However, theories like that never fared well without evidence, at least not when Will was concerned, and Will didn’t have even the bottle of poison to show for what had happened that night. All he had were ideas, old ones that he wanted to disappear, new ones that made his body ache and one that could only question the motives of the demon he waltzed with. 

“Why would he give you the glass, Will? Why would he seek to keep you alive, instead of obtain your reasoning for wanting to assassinate him or kill you where you stood?” Jack leaned into the chair as if he won a battle, watching Will tremble even despite the warm September air that broke out through cracks in his windows.

“Because he hadn’t wanted to kill me.” Will grasped the bedsheets beside him and crumpled the excess fabric into balled fists. “He wanted to toy with me.”

“He-He distracted me, had me dance with him until I passed out, and then engaged me in frivolous conversation just to _taunt_ me. To see how I’d react.”

Jack didn’t seem convinced, in the same way no sane man would have when confronted with such bogus conjecture, but said nothing. There was another pregnant pause, one that nearly made the bloodstained bile reemerge in Will’s chest, and after a number of seconds passed for much longer than needed, Jack shuffled in his inseam pocket to grab what Will knew would only make the current encounter that much worse. “So I suppose this is his way of taunting you as well, then.”

He threw a torn open envelope down at Will’s feet, the beginnings of it’s contents spilling onto his calves, and his body bobbed at the feeling of the impact. It wasn’t heavy, nor uncomfortable, but the feeling of it made him wince nonetheless; and he stared down at it as if it had disgraced him publicly. 

“Depends on what it is.” Will took hold of it, easing three dense pages from their confines and attempting to piece together the gaps of a broken and broken again wax seal on the back of the envelope. Whoever first read the letter cracked the seal out of anxiety, a nervous tic stemming from things the person didn’t want to see and even less wanted to accept, and the smell of imported ink slapped through the pages.

“Read.”

When the pages were skimmed through and the dust of confusion had settled, Will wished he hadn’t read any of it.

It was a letter, yes, and yet more than that. It was an invitation, a cordial one beset by clean handwriting and velveted compliments that the sender nor reader were swayed by, and held the weight of Will’s next breaths in its hands like an inanimate Atlas. With clear cursive letters and pounding words, there laid a request to attend lunch with Hannibal himself- a request Will vehemently intended to decline before realizing that again, he had no say in the matter.

“Jack, no.” The protest was useless. Will knowingly persisted. “This isn’t based in good intentions. Whatever that man wants from me, why he wants to see me, none of what he’s doing is _good._ ”

He despised the desperation that was steadily poured into his sentences, making them stumble in the air like flightless birds and fall dead in between the two of them. “Don’t you believe me?”

“I believe that you failed in your execution, Will- and that this luncheon is nothing but a reflection of Hannibal’s worry for your wellbeing and feigned welcomeness of your company; a gesture to convince the public that he's not the monster he truly is.” Jack's face was empty, stagnant; staring at Will and leaving a chill in his bones. "That's what I believe. The facts."

Did he really believe in the facts, or was it simply a refusal to believe that for once, Will’s failures hadn’t been his fault? Even in their own relationship, apparently, Will was seen only as a fool; a strange form of idiot-savant that clung to his intelligence so to uselessly disguise his perpetual social idiocy, and the fact seemed to present itself more transparently than ever now that Jack’s words had been said and meant. He tried not to let it affect him. It did.

“A murderer feels no worry for his victim.” Will chose to let the other discussion end abruptly as he switched the subject, the feeling of it equivalent to hearing steel gates close and clank locked, and spoke with a dullness he selfishly hoped Jack would notice. He didn’t.

“Then its either a show of worry, or you were never to be his victim in the beginning.”

Now was the time Jack chose to look at him again, running thick fingers through thinning hair and waiting for Will to reply in the way he already knew he would. 

“So what, you and _him_ are sending me there to try again? To perhaps use arsenic this time around?” 

“No.” It was an offended word, dripping with the need to sound like it was derived from a place of familial affection. “No, no. We’re thinking of something else, something foolproof. The acceptance of this meeting with him is simply to erase any suspicion he may have gathered after hearing of your 'sudden illness'.”

Jack could have saved his breath if he had been more concise. Will was to be damage control, sent to repair the mess he had made in a pressured apology from Jack and his Father. After all, everything he did, everything he said, and everywhere he went was all pressured. 

“What will it take for you and him to finally stop controlling my life, Jack?” He felt like a child again, his shirt feeling bigger on him than it was before all while he brought his gaze to the window and counted sparrows in a flying flock. “Or did I already miss that chance when I let Hannibal live?”

“You’re unstable, Will. We- _I_ only want to protect you.”

“From what?”

“From yourself.”

Will held his hands together and continued to peer out of the window, choosing not to respond to Jack’s answer, and remained still as the man stood from his seat and made way for the door. 

“Goodbye, William.”

It was the last thing he heard until the door closed, and after it, Will was all too suddenly left to rot in the sensation of his own silence as he stared at the invitation once again and dreaded tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shh- dont tell anyone i uploaded this, im supposed to be on break right now lmao


	5. no.4- Maniere

“William, look away.”

Jack pressed a hand to Will’s eyes in a belated movement, one that tried to erase the sights already there and prevent the little boy from seeing any others, but it was too late. Jack hadn’t realized it, his father hadn’t realized it, nor had anyone else, but Will did. 

And he figured that she did too, for as he slipped from his Jack’s grasp and stole a few more minutes to see his mother dangling in the air with her silk stockings tied around her throat and her body swaying to the pulsating breaths of August, he could see peeks of a smile sealed on her face before her mouth popped open and her tongue dangled from her lips. There, among swaying roses and behind thin glass walls, he could hear her makeshift noose strain under the weight of her body; and for the first time in years, he could hear her will to live ring clearly through the deathly action she had taken. 

Then, he found himself spellbound by the beauty in his mother as she hung there, how blue her bursted veins looked against the radiant glow of the moon and how her frail little body swung like leaves on trees, finally unbound by her husband’s shackles and her own mental prisons. He adored how cool and dense her feet were when he slinked under Jack's wing to run his fingers along the tops of them, how her eyes bulged out of their sockets as if eager to see the grass below her, how contented she seemed to be as her tattered and mangled shell hovered over her favorite flowers. He wanted to keep her there forever, until his mother’s body transformed into an ugly corpse, and admire the scene she had created for him until he could no longer.

But time moved on, and before he could speak, her dead body was strung off of the ceiling of the greenroom like a parasite in an animal; and now ten years later, all Will wanted to do was hang in that very spot and smile the same way she had until his own breaths were stolen by thick hemp rope. He figured anyone would when forced to dine with a man who was both a theorized killer and had tried to poison him only days ago.

He had gone to his father in efforts to deter his leery fate, of course, if not for any other reason than because he greatly enjoyed causing his own suffering, and received the very same answer he had from Jack earlier that day. A 'No'; followed by a needless slew of sincere insults that shamelessly slapped Will in the face, each one worse than the last, and an offhanded comment regarding his ineptness that left Will more mortally wounded than any switched poison could in his life.

So then there in that greenhouse was where he sat, and there he had been for what was now over half of the next day; sitting on the bench that stood inches from an eerily nostalgic flowerbed, thinking of how elated his mother must have been when she felt her windpipe burst in her neck, and wondering if he would ever be able to replicate that feeling of pure bliss. 

“Your elusiveness is a trait I like least about you, Sir Graham.” A familiarly shrill voice buzzed from his left, accompanied by bouncing skips and shuffling fabric, and brought a temporary silence to the thoughts of his fantastical self-extermination.

“But you still always seem to find me, don’t you Lady Margaret?” The question was rhetorical, the answer known by both of them, and floated listlessly in the sky as Molly sat beside him.

“I wouldn't be here if I didn't.” She joked. As usual, she didn't explain why she was there, or how she had found him. Whenever Molly wanted to see him, she simply saw him; and Will had learned many years ago that he would have no choice but to get accustomed to her surprise visits. Thankfully, her company was enjoyed.

“I heard of your sudden illness. Did Doctor Gideon provide you with the diagnosis?” 

“Encephalitis.” 

“That sounds dreadful.”

It would have been, if it were the truth. 

“You needn’t worry. I’m fine, now." Shuffling in his pants pocket, Will grabbed a small tin box of pills, shaking them gently in their container before putting them away again. "Besides, he also provided me a few iron pills to take whenever I felt lightheaded- though I’m sure that's not information you were looking for.” 

“I just want to know that you’re feeling better, Will.” Molly assured him. “Any information that assures me of that is information I'm looking for."

He had forgotten how blunt she tended to be regarding her love for him. It was one of the best traits about her, in Will’s own opinion; always, her intentions bubbled from within her like water from the fountain of youth. Not akin to his own emotions in the slightest.

“One of the handmaids told me about your argument with your father.”

“I don’t have arguments with him, Molly. To argue implies there is an equal exchange in the conversation.” Will had an edge to his voice that he hadn’t meant to place, and reclined further backwards on the bench.

"There wasn't?" 

"He told me I was a mistake. That I ruin everything I touch." He held himself in favor of rocking all too slightly in his seat, smooth elbows clenched in slender hands. "Do you think I could find the strength to respond to such claims?"

“No. No, I… I don’t.”

“Oh, I can’t begin to know how hard it is for you, Will.” Molly reached for Will’s veined hand, tentatively at first, but bolder when she noticed him keep himself from recoiling away from her. “For you to see these things, to live like this.”

“And, if it’s to be kept solely in the memory of this conversation, I dare say I despise your father more than you could ever for his putting you through the things he does.”

“You’ve hardly met my father, Molly.” Will mused, his left fingers brushing over hers in an inconspicuous manner of appreciation he knew she would notice. “Even despite the time in which we've known each other, isn’t that a bit presumptuous?”

“Perhaps,” Molly seemed relatively unconcerned regarding his question when met with his calloused fingerprints waving left and right on her knuckles, the notion of her opinions being ‘presumptuous’ so far out of her range of sight it caved in on itself on the other side of the world. “But I can guarantee that any man who would dare make you feel this way is a man I’d kill without a second thought.”

“You’re quite vulgar, you know that?” She had a habit of enjoying the grotesque, one Will could never understand and yet still sympathized with, that had been fostered and developed over years of faux investigation and familial connection to the previous Police General. Her father, Will believed was the relation. Perhaps her cousin; his memory failed him in times like these.

"Do you dislike it?"

"I could never dislike it." 

He looked at her and gave a thin-lipped smile, strained but genuine.

"I find it admirable, Molly. I always have."

“Then, that may very well be why we fare so well together. Why we could fare even better together, if-” Her words escaped her before she could temper them, her face flashing with emotions Will found best not to decipher. “-never mind. Hypothetical situations are rarely important.”

The coming autumn breeze sang around them, it’s wispy tendrils passing Molly’s hair about her neck and revealing large patches of pinkish birthmarks Will fought not to trail his hands over as he stared intently at her profile. He didn’t appreciate the silence.

“I’m sorry I don’t write to you more often. That I didn’t before everything _else_ , either.”

They were true words, a previously lost honesty resurfacing just to ease the tired look of those eyes that kept their focus on purple tulips, and were accompanied by a movement that placed him inches closer to her all while keeping a careful distance that spanned the width of the Red Sea.

“Well then, I’m sorry as well. For being overbearing.”

“You never have to apologize to me, Molly. Not for acting within your own nature.”

“You mean it’s in my nature to be overbearing?” 

Will moved to correct himself, taking her comment seriously, but stopped when he heard a suppressed laughter spill through Molly’s fake coughs into her hand.

“Well no, but I wouldn’t deny it if someone else dared to say it.” His response was testing, but light.

“Oh really?” Molly leaned back to her original position, her head turning towards the scenery. “But in all honesty, Will, you don’t have to apologize to me, either. You are you, the noble I’ve known and the man I’ve adored for years on end. Until the end of days, or until you finally reciprocate my affections, I will wait for as long as it takes for you to be comfortable in conversing with me.”

“...If I weren’t so crazed, I’d have wed you already.”

“If you weren’t so crazed, you’d be more annoying than interesting.” Molly replied, watching Will’s hand return to its partner but remaining unaffected. She was too preoccupied in looking at him, staring at the side of his face just as he had moments earlier and waiting to see if he would ever look at her again that afternoon. 

“You find me interesting?” He fulfilled her wish, staring into her eyes one last time before letting his gaze fall onto a particularly brown freckle on the bridge of her nose.

“I find you annoying _and_ interesting.” The wind blew again and shifted down their backs like a breeze to a sail, causing Molly to stand and needlessly pat down the front of her dress before interlocking her fingers in a telling gesture. “Simultaneously.”

He didn’t devise a retort, didn’t feel he needed one while surrounded by such foreign comfort, and stood up after her to escort her out of the Manor and back to her carriage. Her son, a fellow William, was apparently a stickler for timely returns given that Molly was his only living parent, and she adhered to their schedule intently so to not worry the child any more than he usually did. It was a hilarity, seeing that Willy was only a boy of four years old, but Will could find nothing wrong with their relationship. In fact, he envied it. It had been many, many years since there was ever someone who earnestly wanted him around them, or someone who he wanted to return to whenever they parted for too long. Molly came close, but the separation Will had built between them prevented her from getting any closer.

“Goodbye, Sir William.” His name danced in the air and floated on her lofty intonations, a breath of spring in the field of yellowing greens he was surrounded by. 

“Goodbye, Lady Margaret.” He watched her climb into her carriage, too stubborn to enlist the aid of her stablehand but just limber enough to maneuver her underskirt into the seat and close the door behind her with a classlessness he was spellbound by. 

“Ah, But before you go-”

She raised a brow, tapping on the partition that divided the halves of her carriage to postpone her departure and leaning her head to the window. He didn’t get any closer at the sight of it, only raising his voice from the side of the gate, and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet like a woman waiting for a kiss goodnight.

“Expect a letter from me. Sometime soon.”

“William, that may very well be the greatest declaration I’ve ever heard in my life.”

The hyperbolic sentiment was just as exaggerated and theatrical as a frivolous King’s self portraiture, but he found his ears burning at the sound of it even still as he kicked a stray rock centimeters away and waved her off, watching her carriage disappear against the wooded path and remaining still there until the air had turned cold and her scent had faded from his senses completely.

Molly’s presence provided a fleeting respite in the tumultuous turns of the day, more spirited than the fiercest drink and paired with an imperfectly gap-toothed smile to warm the world in place of his own, but even she couldn’t erase the letter that oozed disquiet on the surface of his desk. Walking into his bedroom and feeling the burning acid of danger that radiated off of the blackened ink, Will realized that nothing could.

Because when Sir Hannibal Lecter wanted something, he got it.

And now, he wanted _him_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pretty fluffy chapter tbh- forgot i wrote it lmaoooo  
> this was NOT beta read in the slightest, as I am knee deep in rl work rn and don't have time to do it myself, but I hope its still fine


	6. no. 5- Bacarolle

"Presenting the guest d'honneur, as per your request."

Will walked through the doors at the sound of his cue, the uneasiness never quite fading away, and stood once again in front of the man from that nightmarish evening.

After Molly left the evening prior, Will had wasted no more time aiming to evade his future. In the early mornings, alone he had arrived at last to the chateau for the arranged luncheon, and now as he stood in the parlor doorway, no guards were needed to announce to Will the man he stood in front of.

It was Hannibal, again in Will's sight all too soon with a thin-lipped smile stretched from cheek to cheek and an air about him that smelt of deaths forgotten and murders remembered. And now across from him stood his disgusted guest yet again, head held low with eyes fixed up; reminiscent fantasies of idyllic murder methods sprouting their ways back into his vision like mushrooms on a fermented corpse.

"Sir Graham."

"Your Grace."

The titles were an insubstantial formality, as many greetings such as these were, but Will still couldn’t get Hannibal's pronunciation of his name out of his ears once it had been said even after hearing it over and over again only a week ago. He figured that he’d never be able to. 

"Please, let us sit.” The Duke gestured to the table, making Will take notice of the cleverly placed irises and decorative cornucopias that sat between two covered plates of food, and then let his arm fall again to his side as he turned back in his guest’s direction. “I've ensured the room to be ours alone for the duration of our meeting."

At the mention of it, the guards took their leave, closing the double doors behind them with a slam that shook the world. 

"You were looking _forward_ to this?"

"Of course I was. I invited you." Hannibal took a step to nowhere, and Will retreated in a similar fashion. He immediately despised the smile that curled in the corner of Hannibal’s mouth when he noticed the ever-present distance remain between the two of them, but tried hard to let it go. He didn’t know what would happen if he ever let that man get too close, and didn’t intend to find out. _Everything horrible was always based in good intentions._

"You only invited me because you have nothing better to do, it seems." 

"Don't be facetious, Sir Graham. I always have better things to do." The duke backed away and sat in his seat, his black coattails curling to his thighs as he smoothed them down and adjusted in his chair. Will remained standing in the center of a floor tile, a position that made him feel like a chess piece. "I just chose to postpone them all in favor of meeting you again. Now, sit."

If Will tried hard enough, squinted his eyes and honed his focus, he could see the veins in Hannibal’s neck bend and flex under his skin as he moved to sit down across from him on the other side of wooden dining table; and for a fleeting moment, Will wondered what that throat would have looked like if the poisoning had worked to begin with. Once he realized what that thought implied, he made sure to wipe it clean from his mind, and slumped onto the seat cushion with a purposeful 'oomph'.

"Why am I here, Hannibal?"

Hannibal noticed the withdrawn usage of titles, a notice made apparent by the pretentious raising of an eyebrow. "Are we comfortable enough to refer to each other by name, Sir Graham?"

"I simply don't believe I can refer to a person as ‘graceful’ when they've poisoned me. Not currently, at the very least."

From that came a low rumble of acknowledgement in Hannibal's throat, the man's Adam's apple bobbing against his skin before he continued in his preparation to eat his meal, and took to answering Will’s original question.

“You’re here because I called for you. Because I wanted you.” 

It was one thing to know it, but a completely separate one to hear it, spoken through soft lips with a callous tone of simplicity and landing flat in the middle of the dinner table; there in the space directly next to where Will's bleeding heart lay beating like another eccentric centerpiece.

“At that soiree, that night,” Hannibal began, with his maroon eyes fixed on his target and the world frozen outside of the parlor window, “you had no reason to kill me, no reason to poison me or and no reason to disguise your ill intent, but you did. I find that to be a subject of great amusement as of late.”

“I would hardly call wanting to end the plights of a murderer ‘a subject of great amusement’.”

“A murderer.” Hannibal swirled red wine in his glass, the liquid floating around in an endless whirlpool and releasing subtle scents of apple and citrus. “I would hardly call myself a murderer.”

“I would be lying if I told you I care about what you’d call yourself. The witnesses say enough.”

Will couldn't begin to know if Jack had any witnesses, or if any witnesses even existed in this manner, but it was a bluff that worked nonetheless; and Hannibal reclined in his seat with his legs crossing under the table and his large hand gripping the end of the stem in between his fingers. He was amused, again. Will had amused him.

“So that’s all it takes to instill a desire to assassinate me within you, Will? Unreliable eyewitnesses and unfortunate murders that have no viable connection?” Hannibal murmured, soon setting his glass back down on the tabletop and leaning back towards his plate. “That hardly sounds like sufficient evidence.”

“Evidence is of little importance when the matter at hand is dealing with people like you.” 

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re expendable.” Another empty statement, another show of strength that didn't exist and never had existed.

“If that’s true, then we’re more similar than I previously thought.” Hannibal reached for one of his knives and traced the blade along a side of the steak, revealing a pinkish center that oozed translucent juices all as a slender piece was cut and stabbed through with the sharpened prongs of a fork. If Will wasn’t still so stubborn, still so convinced that Hannibal was a man who would have been all too glad to poison him twice, he might have indulged in his own meal. But he didn’t, refused to, and so he only spent his time staring imaginary holes into Hannibal’s eyes with a grit jaw and hands gripping black satin slacks.

“Are you not hungry?”

“I often choose not to break bread with men who treat the topic of murder as a trivial conversation subject.”

“Delightful.”

There was a second, palpable quiet, one only interrupted by the occasional scratching of serrated blade on porcelain dining ware and the soft chewing of tender meat, and lasted just until Hannibal chose to speak again.

“You’re a man who doesn’t have much to lose, Sir Graham.” Hannibal wiped his mouth with his napkin in one smooth motion, setting the cloth back down when he was finished and tilting his head inquisitively to one side; like looking back at Will was as inconvenient as peering into darkness. “Though I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that.”

“A dying social status, a failing reputation, a broken family and an attempted murder weighing on your consciousness? From what I could gather, not many people consider your future to be shining particularly bright; figuratively or financially.”

Will swallowed, standing up from his seat and slamming his hands on either side of his untouched dish. “If this meeting is to consist solely of you spewing derivative insults in my direction, I see no reason for me to stay here.”

Hannibal remained motionless, the lack of reaction simultaneously so loud it could have been screaming at him. 

“Sit.”

That was the only incentive he needed. Will sat back down before he could feel himself bend, and seemed to then instantly despise the truthful notion of him having obeyed the demands of a murderer solely due to emotions he could not control. His fear was the size of a mustard seed, and yet still larger than the faith he had in the hope that he could leave this meeting unscathed without adhering to Hannibal’s every beck and call.

“Get to your point, Hannibal.”

“How bad do you want to kill me, Sir Graham?" Hannibal's curiosity was misplaced, his question neither ingenuine nor pure in purpose. "Is it enough to keep you awake at night? Enough to make your heart nearly burst in your ribcage whenever you hear the sound of my name? Enough to make your throat dry when you wake and your eyes water when you sleep?”

“Hypothetical situations are rarely important.” Molly’s words came in handy then, as Will’s mind was too jumbled to think of any response of his own. 

“I would hardly describe this situation as hypothetical."

“Then what would you describe it as?” Will gestured around the table with a flair of recklessness neither of them fully enjoyed.“A dinner party?”

"I would describe it as achievable."

Will could think of no response, and slumped down in his seat with his heart racing and his hand reaching for the glass of water that sat what felt like miles away. He couldn’t admit he was dumbfounded to a man like Hannibal, couldn’t show it in his face or in his palpable delay of a statement. He needed an excuse for his silence.

He couldn't find one.

“You see, your puzzling nature is one that mystifies me." Hannibal explained, taking control of the conversation when he found that Will would be unable to. “There’s something I don’t know about those eyes that hold secrets revealed to no one, that mind that borders on the edge of depravity, those hands with limitless potential. If you wanted to kill me, earnestly, I would have no qualms with providing you with the opportunity- provided that you grant _me_ something, in return.” 

“Excuse me?” Will had to somehow refrain from accidentally drowning himself with the sip of water he took, a task made nearly impossible when confronted with words so perplexing they made his eardrums twist and turn above his jaw.

“Allow me to place this in terms you can more easily understand, Sir Graham.” His half-eaten meal was now long forgotten as Hannibal pushed the plate aside, setting his elbows on the table and his chin on intertwined knuckles. “If you like, I’ll _give_ you the chance to kill me- however you like, whenever you like. In exchange, you’ll inhabit this manor with me until you do- and work under me as my servant.”

“...You’ve gone _mad_.”

It was the only conclusion Will could bring himself to come to.

“That’s a sentiment I’m often told.” Hannibal chuckled, an unwelcome sound when placed alongside the suffocating tension that had condensed around the two of them. “But, I’m far from it. Truly, I only wish to find a man desperate enough to be solely content with the position I offer him- serving the master of this estate.”

“I’ll serve no one.” 

“You'll serve _me_.” Hannibal cut his gaze to Will before returning it to his glass of wine, tracing lazy circles around the rim of it as he droled on and ignored the shock that had slivered down his guest's back. “That is, unless you’d rather wait for another year to pass, another soiree to unwillingly attend and another glass to poison.“

Will muttered a loose curse under his breath, hoping that the man didn't hear it and yet not completely caring if he did, and gnawed at the loose skin on his bottom lip. “So in exchange for my opportunity to kill you, you’ll be entitled to having yet another servant under your constant supervision.”

It was a statement, not a question that Will wanted to ask nor wanted an answer to, but Hannibal affirmed it anyway with a slow nod that Will would find himself dreaming of long after the day was done. “Why? Why do you want to do this?”

"My work is never done. As a duke, I could use the assistance.” Hannibal set his hands again in his lap, looking to the painted ceiling and scanning the sky for his next sentence. “And, as for why I've chosen you in particular," 

“Well, I only want to see what will happen.”

Repulsion wasn’t something Will felt often, as he considered it to be a hypocritical emotion, but now, he paid close attention to how it festered inside of him and stabbed into his nerves with a throbbing virulence. Was this the only choice he had to prove to his father that he was worth a damn, or to Jack that he was more than the crazed child with a broken home? And would killing Hannibal truly be worth forsaking his privacy, his identity, his self?

His blood had run cold, had been that way for hours, and he could feel the slushed hemoglobin shift throughout his body with each second and each millisecond that passed. Will was regarded as a victim of circumstance in this world by both Hannibal and himself, cursed by God and man alike to dance eternally from the strings of premeditated fate that grit and ground against the pulsating veins in his wrists, and feet away from him sat the knife he would inevitably need to free himself from the string-like shadows of his own solemn life sentence. 

It was all so terrifying, yet so dubiously tranquil, and brought forth the feeling of a lone raft drifting towards a coming tsunami. If blessed, Will could potentially ride the waves. Will had never been blessed.

“What’s your answer, Will? Or will you keep me in suspense indefinitely?”

“My answer should be obvious.” And it was; too obvious, considering the corner he had backed himself into and the dwindling pride that seemed to be running faster and faster out of his fingertips the more they sat there. 

“Where in this mansion will I be staying, specifically? And how, pray tell, will I help you in your duties?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me at the beginning of this series: "I have to write this series out to classical music in order for me to get in the ✨mood✨."  
> Me now, writing the climax of the story: *plays friday night funkin' theme on loop*  
> On a more serious note, apologies for the hiatus. (College is a bitch, what can i say.) We're back to our semi-regular upload time, with 2 chap uploads this week to make up for the missing one last week.


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